


I love this feeling/but I hate this part

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Could Be Canon, F/M, One Shot, Pining, Porn With Plot, Sex, canon is but a pond we all splash in, it's basically a what could've happened when shitty came over to help lardo bedazzle shit at 4 am, kind of????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:47:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23334100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: She isn’t blind, and this is the second problem. She sort of already knows how this conversation would go; she knows how he looks at her, has heard almost every chirp about his crush on her over the last three years. She’d say something about him in Cambridge, he’d say something about driving to see her every weekend, she’d tell him she’s barely good with relationships when she can see them every day, he’d say, “This is us, though,” and he’d be right, and that’s — that’s terrifying. It’s too big to mess up. If they get it wrong, she could lose him. That’s something to consider.Another part of her, the larger part, is feeling too much at once. She feels like a spraypaint canister under the highest pressure imaginable. Like she needs to unscrew the cap or everything is going to explode._______________________Shitty/Lardo from Lardo's POV, during the night before her art show junior year :)
Relationships: Larissa "Lardo" Duan/Shitty Knight
Comments: 18
Kudos: 128





	I love this feeling/but I hate this part

________________________

Shitty responds to her text immediately and says  _ I’ll be right over. _ Sometimes, Lardo thinks he wanted to be a superhero when he was younger and never grew out of it; he has a large dose of “save the world” in him that comes out almost all the time. Even at times like this, when she’s just complaining about having to bedazzle things all night for her show tomorrow. Even though it’s a big deal to her — she’s been working on her paintings all semester, if not longer, and this just slipped by the wayside until it absolutely couldn’t — it’s almost an even bigger deal when he rings her doorbell. Shitty shows up for people he cares about. It’s a strange, fluttery feeling to know she’s one of them.

He’s hunched over with his hands on his knees. She rubs his back soothingly, reminding herself she’s done this hundreds of times, that this is something they do.

“Did you run?” she asks.

Shitty unfolds, and she takes a step back. “I got a 911 from my best brah,” he says, mussing her hair. “Of course I ran.”

He follows her through her apartment to her room, where she’s got her painting laid out on her bed and the godforsaken jockstrap on her desk and two of her nicest dresses hanging up on her closet door. She takes a minute to just watch him navigate her space, carefully shifting her paintings to the side so he can sit on her bed without crushing anything. 

“So this is the thing,” Lardo says, picking up the jockstrap. She tells him her idea for it and he listens so intently that she trips over her words. 

This is the first problem.

Shitty has the same expression on his face as he does during strategy meetings before the games. He’s paying attention as if she’s unveiling their game-saving play right before the Frozen Four. And she appreciates it, she does. It’s a little something unsteadying to have him give her this much care while he called her his “best brah.” 

They help each other out all the time. They don’t always do it when it’s 2AM and she’s running on that slap-happy energy from being up late and having a deadline, and he ran over. It’s even worse when she remembers he’s graduating soon and is, almost definitely, going to Harvard in the fall; they’re all pretty positive it’s just a phonecall away for him.

She sets the jockstrap down on and turns away from him. Takes a deep breath.

“Lards? What’s up?” 

The floorboards creak behind her, and soon Shitty’s hugging her from behind while resting his chin on her head. His weight against her back should be calming. It would be, if she wasn’t suddenly, overwhelmingly aware of how she feels about him.

Lardo tunes in to hear him say, “—if you wanna talk about it,” and shakes her head before he finishes his sentence. 

She isn’t blind, and this is the second problem. She sort of already knows how this conversation would go; she knows how he looks at her, has heard almost every chirp about his crush on her over the last three years. She’d say something about him in Cambridge, he’d say something about driving to see her every weekend, she’d tell him she’s barely good with relationships when she can see them every day, he’d say, “This is  _ us, _ though,” and he’d be right, and that’s — that’s terrifying. It’s too big to mess up. If they get it wrong, she could lose him. That’s something to consider.

“Lards?” Shitty says gently. Now he rests his cheek against hers, bending over so much she almost fears for his back. “Lards, you in there?”

“Yeah,” she says hoarsely. “So. I wanna bedazzle this part here—”

Shitty lightly tickles her stomach and she trails off, distracted. Part of her wants him to do that again, except with her on top of him with her shirt on the floor. Another part of her, the larger part, is feeling too much at once. She feels like a spraypaint canister under the highest pressure imaginable. Like she needs to unscrew the cap or everything is going to explode.

Shitty says, “You don’t have to pretend with me, Lards,” and now he gently spins her around to face him. “You don’t have to act like you’re okay.”

His hands are on her waist. She covers them with her own, interlacing their fingers slowly. It’s impossible to look at him now that her wants are so close to the surface. 

“I’m fine,” she says with her eyes closed. 

“Is it about your project? Or is it — have I done something?” 

He sounds uncertain now, as if he really thinks he might have hurt her without knowing.

Which is why she says, “I’m  _ fine,” _ and, tired of thinking, she hops up onto the desk. She slides his hands down to her hips. Shitty frowns slightly, his mouth parting. Then his eyes widen.

“Oh.  _ Oh.  _ Lardo, are you — do you want—”

One of his fingers slips under the hem of her sweatpants. Lardo breathes an airy “fuck it” and stands up abruptly, nearly crashing their heads together. Her whole body feels like a live wire. She wants all of him.

When she asks him to, he takes off her pants. When he touches the sleeve of her shirt, she raises her arms. He slides it off neatly. He picks her up and sets her down on the desk and they feel so in tune with each other, easy, as if they’ve done this before. 

“Take your shirt off,” she says softly, a question and suggestion at the same time. 

Shitty complies so quickly he trips over himself. It breaks whatever tension was between them; she laughs, and he looks at her sheepishly with his shirt mostly over his ears. 

He’s frustrating to look at. Objectively, she knows his body almost better than her own, a knowledge from the last two years of him posing for her art projects whenever she needed it. It’s something else entirely to have him standing in front of her, shirtless and in sweats, knowing he ran over just because she’d said  _ this project is a sonovabitch, send help. _ Something else knowing she’s allowed to have him tonight. 

This is  _ them. _ Lardo casually leans back and separates her knees, giving him room to step in between them. When he does, he says, “Your bra is cute as fuck,” and she smiles at him while threading her fingers through his hair. He lightly trails his fingertips along the top of her thighs, teases the top of her underwear.

“Thanks,” Lardo says, and unsnaps her bra.

He inhales sharply. “We’re doing this then. Yeah?” 

“If you’re okay with that,” she says. She tilts her head to the side, studying his face. “Is that okay? Do you want to?”

Shitty says, face so earnest she squeaks ever softly, “I want to.”

“Then,” she says, “kiss me.”

He doesn’t do it right away. Lardo practically vibrates with anticipation as he looks at her, and his gaze is so nearly a physical thing. She doesn’t want him to look away. If she thinks too hard — looks too closely at what she doesn’t want — she’s going to think of him going away, and she can’t have that tonight. 

His hands are on her waist now, marking a path up her stomach and brushing over her nipples and resting at her throat and jaw. Shitty tucks some of her hair behind her ear. It’s only recently been long enough to do that properly. 

She thinks he’s going to kill her like this. Soft hands and soft movements and light, grazing touches. If it wasn’t for how awestruck he seems to be, she’d think he was doing it on purpose.

“Shitty,” she says, and now he kisses her. 

It’s a kiss that makes her think of every lingering look they’ve ever had. Every time they held hands a little bit too long to be platonic. Every time she’s slept over after a kegster, wearing one of his hockey shirts and a pair of boxers. Three fucking years of buildup bursting outward and he’s leaning now and she’s pulling him closer now, hands grasping and holding and teasing now, and he sucks on her bottom lip. She squeezes his hips with her knees.

“Yeah?” he whispers, doing it again.

She nods determinedly. She’s thinking of a way to get him out of his sweats when he slides his hand into her panties.

“And this?” he says. “Is this okay too?”

Lardo says, “Yes,” and he kisses down her neck as he slides a finger inside her. 

“Wait.”

He stops immediately, searching her eyes. “Was that too much?”

“No, I—” 

Lardo frames his face. He is so, so dear to her. She kisses him again, one long, extended kiss that makes her curl her toes, and he sighs.

She whispers, “I wanted to do that again.” She says, “How far do you want this to go?”

“I wanna go as far as you wanna go,” he says. “I’m comfortable with you, and I trust you.”

She says, “I’m comfortable with and trust you too,” because it’s safer than saying  _ I love you and don’t want you to leave. _ He guides her into the kind of kiss that makes her whole body feel bubbly. She guides his hand back between her legs.

Shitty takes his time working her open, hooking his finger to give her the kind of pressure that makes her gasp while feeling her up. It’s so much that she’s almost lightheaded from him, and his mouth hot at her neck, and the fact that this is  _ happening. _ The reality of the situation is so much that she can only lean into him. She thinks she might be pulling his hair too much but he seems to like it, doubling his speed every time she holds tighter. When she comes, it’s like an explosion all over. She drops her head back against the wall.

“Fuck,” Lardo says. “You’re so fucking good at that.”

She’s expecting him to preen at that. He does to an extent; she sees the way it makes him blush, but he only kisses her briefly and steps away. She frowns, about to ask him to come back, but then she realizes it’s only so he can take off her underwear. Another thrill of anticipation runs through her body. 

“Just getting you warmed up,” Shitty says. And he gets on his knees.

____________

Shitty is a selfless lover in the sense that he spends so much time on her that her ass goes numb while he eats her out. After she comes, she shakily brushes his hair away from his face, asking about his knees.

“Knees of steel,” he says. She raises her eyebrows, and he winces a little. “Yeah, okay. They hurt like a motherfucker.” 

“Do you wanna sit?” Lardo asks. She’s not actually sure whether or not she can stand right now — her legs are still a little shaky from all the attention he gave her, but it wouldn’t be fair not to offer. 

“Honestly—” He glances at her bed, where the painting’s still dominating the bedspread.

She says, “We can put it somewhere else,” and he says, “Don’t move. Where do you want it?”

“By the window should be fine.”

Shitty picks it up carefully, giving her time to appreciate the muscles in his back and arms. He’s still wearing his sweatpants, and she wants so much to lay him out and peel them off. 

There is just the barest amount of moonlight coming in through her curtains. It catches his hair and shimmers, brushing all the way down the side of his neck and shoulders and chest. All the places she wants to press her lips to. The problem with him eating her out is that she wasn’t able to touch him like that. She knows his body. She wants to feel it under her fingers.

He comes back over slowly, so he doesn’t trip on any of her projects. She’s grateful his eyes are on the floor. She’s feeling too much for it not to show on her face. 

“Here,” he says softly, looping an arm behind her back and the other under her knees. Lardo hugs him around the neck while he lifts her, spending the three or four steps between the desk and the bed working on kissing him on the neck. 

He lowers her too carefully. She wants him to press her into the mattress.

“You aren’t gonna break me,” she says. “I’m short, I’m not fragile.”

Shitty says, “Noted,” and there’s a slight smile playing on his lips. 

It reminds her of something. “Lie down.”

He does and she straddles him, pinning his hands above his head. It’s a heady moment because she knows he could break her hold if he wanted, but he’s letting her hold him down. She lets go of his hands in favor of running her fingers over his chest and abs, learning the contours of his body until she could probably sketch him in her sleep. She comes to the waist band of his sweats and pauses.

When he speaks, his voice sounds a little strained. “You can take those off. If you want.” 

In stead of responding, she kisses the jut of his hip and slowly takes off his sweats.

“Lards, please just — you’re killing me,” he says, smiling in frustration, “all of you, you’re killing me like this.”

She says, “I’ll make it up to you.” She trails kisses down his thighs and lets his pants slide onto the floor before making her way back up to his boxers. She runs a finger along the hem of his boxers. He exhales sharply, and when she looks at him, he already looks so strung out. 

Lardo keeps eye contact and pulls off his boxers. “Let me make it up to you.”

She angles herself so he can see all of her, arching her back in an invitation for him to squeeze her ass. He does. She bites her lip. 

“Okay,” he says breathlessly, squeezing again. She takes a deep, deep breath. “Make it up to me.”

She swallows him down and licks up his shaft and is about to really, truly start when he says, “Lards.”

“What’s up?” she says. She sits back. He keeps his hand on his hip.

“Do you want,” he starts, then pauses. “I’m not going to last long if you do that, but if you wanted — I don’t know if you have something—”

He trails off. Lardo’s had three years of experience reading him, though, so she follows his thought process to its conclusion. It’s an easy decision, really. If this is the only night they have, she wants everything.

“I want you to fuck me,” she says. His eyes widen. She says, “I have a condom in my top drawer.”

Shitty almost falls off the bed reaching for it. “How d’you wanna do this?” he asks, rolling it on. 

“You just ate me out for, like, half an hour,” Lardo says. “Move me where you want me.”

He frowns. “Do you mean like—”

“I mean,” she says, placing his hands on her hips,  _ “move _ me, where you want me. I’m not delicate, Shits. I want you to throw me around a bit.”

Shitty nods, still frowning. She’s about to tell him  _ it’s okay, we don’t have to do it like this _ when he flips her over so fast she loses her breath. He lifts her legs and slides a pillow under her hips to angle them upwards and pulls her toward him and she is so, so fucking horny for him. 

“Like that?” he asks. He kisses her hot and fast, sucking her bottom lip the way she likes it. She holds onto the blankets while he rubs her clit with his dick. “You like it like that?”

She almost says  _ I like it however you do it _ but that’s not safe, so she just nods helplessly. He slides into her gently and it makes her gasp at how well he fills her up. She is momentarily furious that they haven’t been doing this the whole time, but then he pushes deeper. She winces.

“Too much?”

“A little,” she says.

He pulls out a bit, adjusting. “How’s that?”

She says, “That’s perfect,” because it is.  _ They _ are. 

He fucks into her like he keeps reminding himself she isn’t delicate and she loves him a little for it. He keeps — saying things, little things, how she looks underneath him and how she sounds and  _ you’re fucking gorgeous, I can’t believe we’re actually _ and she wants more of him, so she tells him to fuck her faster and deeper and that she wants him so badly, and now it’s his turn to sound like a mess. She likes him like that, likes that she pulled him to pieces like that. 

He comes with his face buried against her neck. She holds him there until she can’t, so close to her own orgasm that it almost hurts, and he rolls off of her and he rubs her until she sees stars in the most beautiful constellation she’s ever known. He kisses her through the waves.

____________

Lardo convinces him to shower with her with minimal effort. Under the water, he seems like a different Shitty than the one she knows; he seems quieter while he examines her body wash, a little more serious when he reads the label on her conditioner.

“Hey,” she says gently. She waits until he looks at her to continue. “What’s going on in your head?”

He blinks away a drop of water. “Just thinking about how we got here,” he says. “It feels like a dream, being here with you.”

_ A dream. _ Lardo wasn’t ready to wake up from this that fast. She turns away from him, pretending she just needs to get shampoo. Graduation looms so large now that she can’t help but stare at it.

“It’s real,” she says, turning her face up so the water hides any tears she might be crying. “I’m here.”

He says her name now and she faces him now and when they kiss, it tastes ever so slightly of soap. It tastes a little desperate as she holds him closer, pretending if she doesn’t let go nothing has to change.

____________

She forgot about the fucking jock strap. It’s 4AM and she has a show in less than 20 hours and she still has to bedazzle the stupid fucking jockstrap.

“What do you need from me right now?” Shitty asks. 

For a second Lardo thinks he was about to kiss her again, but he stops at the last second. It feels like they’re almost in a limbo land; she wants to bury her face in his chest, but she isn’t sure if that’s a thing they do. They’re caught in the aftermath of a moment that could change everything, if they want it to. 

She wants to say,  _ I need you to stay. _ She wants to say, _ Can’t you stay until I graduate, and then we can figure this out. _ But she knows him — her superhero. He’ll be everyone’s superhero soon enough in law school. She can’t ask that of him.

“I’m good, I can finish up.”

Shitty stares at her until she gives in and looks at him. He says, “Why do I feel like we’re back at the beginning, when you weren’t telling me what was wrong?”

He says it mildly. It stings like an accusation anyway.

“I—” 

Lardo waves her hands in frustration, trying to pick the words she needs out of the air. They don’t come. Shitty watches until she sits down on the bed. He squats in front of her, taking her hands in his own. 

Quietly, he says, “Did we go too fast? Was that too much?”

“You were perfect,” she says forcefully. She cradles his face with both of their hands.

A strain of tension leaves his face. “Is it the show? Brah, you know I got your back—”

“It’s not that,” she cuts in. A rising current in her throat tells her if she doesn’t say it now, she’s going to start crying. 

“What is it,” he asks softly. “Lards—”

“You’re leaving,” she says, letting go of his face to cover her eyes, “and I’m in love with you. I thought this would be fine, I just wanted — everything. You. And you’re graduating.”

She’s dimly aware of Shitty sitting next to her, navigating around the wet spot on the bed so he can pull her into a hug. He seems, for once, at a loss for words. She needs him to say something. This unnatural silence is too loud in the spaces between them.

“It doesn’t mean we won’t keep in touch,” he says finally. “I know people say that just to say it, but I’m not saying it like that. Lards, I’ve been in love with you almost since we met. I didn’t know I could feel like this. This is something I’ll go the distance for, if you want me to.”

It’s too much, what he’s offering. 

“I don’t wanna fuck this up.”

He says, “It’s you and me, Lards,” sounding so earnest she almost believes him. “I’ll leave it alone if you want me to. But if we’re trying — I don’t think we’d fuck it up.”

“I don’t want,” she says, “to lose you.”

“You won’t.”

“But you’re graduating. I’m not graduating.”

“New rule,” Shitty says. She’s almost gratified that he sounds frustrated. “Next person to say the word ‘graduation’ or ‘graduated’ or ‘graduating’ gets a noogie, okay?”

“Does that mean you get three?”

He narrows his eyes. “Look here, smartypants. I don’t have a good threat for you, but someday I will, and you better watch out then.”

“I’m trembling,” she says, and he laughs reluctantly.

She gives him three anyway.

____________

Lardo does the fastest load of laundry in her life while Shitty helps her bedazzles the jockstrap. The only instructions she’d given him were “Go ham.” From the way he’s set up all the gems, he seems to have taken them to heart.

They’re both done around 5:30AM. He helps her make the bed without her needing to ask, and all she has to do is open the covers for him to crawl in with her. She pulls his arm over her stomach and he curls around her with years of practice. 

They’re quiet for a moment. He traces a line up and down her stomach. She melts against his chest. They breathe together.

“I don’t know what I want,” she whispers. “I just don’t wanna lose you.”

“You won’t,” he says. He kisses the top of her head. “You’re stuck with me.”

And for a moment, she lets herself believe him.

________________________

**Author's Note:**

> I always forget??? how hard sex is to write??? idk if this is Porn w Plot BUT it is Porn with FEELINGS so there's that
> 
> This came from a tumblr prompt! If you got more ideas, pls [hit me up](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> Lemme know what you think below or [come find me on tumblr :)](https://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com/)


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